gregfeeler
Dances With Sheep
The test will be when your '16 is 50 or 75 years old. We already know what that age of styling looks like by today's standard by looking at any "cruiser".
-
Welcome, Guest! We hope you enjoy the excellent technical knowledge, event information and discussions that the BMW MOA forum provides. Some forum content will be hidden from you if you remain logged out. If you want to view all content, please click the 'Log in' button above and enter your BMW MOA username and password. If you are not an MOA member, why not take the time to join the club, so you can enjoy posting on the forum, the BMW Owners News magazine, and all of the discounts and benefits the BMW MOA offers?
-
Beginning April 1st, and running through April 30th, there is a new 2024 BMW MOA Election discussion area within The Club section of the forum. Within this forum area is also a sticky post that provides the ground rules for participating in the Election forum area. Also, the candidates statements are provided. Please read before joining the conversation, because the rules are very specific to maintain civility.
The Election forum is here: Election Forum
Is Harley-Davidson Dying?
- Thread starter gtrider
- Start date
The test will be when your '16 is 50 or 75 years old. We already know what that age of styling looks like by today's standard by looking at any "cruiser".
gregfeeler
Dances With Sheep
I wonder if the worse Harley's situation becomes, the more that disdain will increase (a "circling the wagons" mentality)?
When I bought my 2018 RT a friend told me that is was the ugliest bike he had ever seen. I told him I didn't buy it to satisfy him!
pglaves
#13338
Probably a good friend willing to josh his good buddy with a little "funnin."
It isn't like he said it about his wife or something.
36654
New member
https://www.thedrive.com/news/33583/the-cuts-are-coming-for-harley-davidson
Someone's opinion of a Wall Street Journal article...
Someone's opinion of a Wall Street Journal article...
gregfeeler
Dances With Sheep
I don't know if this was by accident, or intentional, but when I read that link there was a Royal Enfield ad right in the quotes from Harley about building only exclusive, premium models. Check the Royal Enfiled price. Talk about your juxtaposition, or ironic placement.
Attachments
pglaves
#13338
36654
New member
You forgot the Coleslaw wrestling. How could you?
The places you have been...…………….
Anyone on any brand of bike is OK in my book as long as they behave themselves.
As far as Harley goes, the day will certainly come when Harley is no more. They’ve had a good long run and have outlasted many other big names. International Harvester, American Motors, Tecumseh come to mind, but nothing lasts forever. Harley’s time may be due, but it’s a big ship and will probably take a long time to sink.
As far as Harley goes, the day will certainly come when Harley is no more. They’ve had a good long run and have outlasted many other big names. International Harvester, American Motors, Tecumseh come to mind, but nothing lasts forever. Harley’s time may be due, but it’s a big ship and will probably take a long time to sink.
gregfeeler
Dances With Sheep
My reading is that owning a Harley is the exclusive thing. Says you have the bux. After all, BMW says they are an aspirational brand.
gregfeeler
Dances With Sheep
36654
New member
You have no idea.
Back in your corner of the pen.......ewe-toy!
stevenrankin
Active member
Kodak
Okay, here is my take on this Harley dying thing.
I worked for Eastman Kodak when in Rochester NY it had 90,000 or so employees, more around the world. A company at the top of its game. That was 1985.
Along comes a little thing called digital photography, and now in 2020, There is very little of Kodak left in fact, if one of its CEO's had gotten his way, The Kodak name would be only a name without film at all. I digress, it is still making film, that is another story.
What is my point? In the case of HD, The market is going away for many diverse reasons. We can discuss that forever. Bottom line is new technology will replace the gasoline engine sometime in the future. No doubt about it at all. A trend similar to digital photography replacing film and paper photography.
Reading the fish wrapper the other day, I saw an article the UK has decided after a certain date NO gas or diesel cars will be sold. When do you think this will apply to motorcycles as well? Will the rest of the world do the same thing? Who knows when they will perhaps, they never will. The clear thing is low carbon producing vehicles are becoming the target for advanced countries, though perhaps not for India and China.
IF HD, shakes itself out of its present state and finds some way to embrace the new technologies, the new demands of new customers, and government regulations, it will survive. HD management should take a LONG hard look at the demise of Kodak and commit to doing something better suited than Kodak's management. How they will do this, I don't know, I only know what happened to a giant of a company with a well known name and large share of market.
Management is the key to any companies success. During my time at Kodak, I worked not only in film research and development I had several divergent jobs there over my 25 year span.
I started out in Kodak assembling cameras, that went away because cameras could be made cheaper and better by camera companies overseas. I went from assembling cameras to assembling mortar shell fuses, that went away because of problems with manufacturing and cost. After mortar shells, I got involved with office copiers, Kodak was trying to build another business beside film and chemicals, needless to say, that went bust, upper management couldn't get behind it as it was not film and paper related. From there I went to blood analyzers. Again an attempt to branch out into something beside the film business. Nope, blood analyzers, could not make a big enough profit so they were sold to Johnson and Johnson who went on to make entire company out of them hence lots of money. I finally ended up in fine art black and white photography research and development. While there, I was involved in bringing many fine black and white products to market. Then, the digital age hit hard. Research into new film was cut, and the products I had worked so hard to bring to market were ignored. I was laid off as my career had ended and the company was dying. Dying companies don't keep people on or hire.
A long sob story the point being, HD, BMW can both end up in the same boat as Kodak if their upper management has their heads up their asses.
The attack on motorcycling is going on now, be it changing tastes, environmental, any one or a hundreds of things. Smart management will make the difference. Oh yes, there are still buggy whip makers out there. Perhaps one day HD and BMW will be in the same boat as they are.
Futurists can say a lot of things, only one thing for certain will happen, we will all be dead in the future, our likes, dislikes, habits, customs, works, everything will be gone in the future. I will continue to ride my 84 R80RT and my 78 RS for as long as I can because, as far as I am concerned, BMW dropped the boat years ago first with the boutique dealer experience and second because I have never needed the high tech go fast, bigger better bikes with yards of plastic, stylish but useless side cases and a host of other things.
My final word is this, nothing in a digital image will ever replace a properly made silver halide film and paper black and white picture. The quality is non existent in digital compared to silver. Yet, silver is gone to almost nothing but a handful of people now. Baggers, and R18, and Wide Glides might just be in the silver league. Time will tell. St.
Okay, here is my take on this Harley dying thing.
I worked for Eastman Kodak when in Rochester NY it had 90,000 or so employees, more around the world. A company at the top of its game. That was 1985.
Along comes a little thing called digital photography, and now in 2020, There is very little of Kodak left in fact, if one of its CEO's had gotten his way, The Kodak name would be only a name without film at all. I digress, it is still making film, that is another story.
What is my point? In the case of HD, The market is going away for many diverse reasons. We can discuss that forever. Bottom line is new technology will replace the gasoline engine sometime in the future. No doubt about it at all. A trend similar to digital photography replacing film and paper photography.
Reading the fish wrapper the other day, I saw an article the UK has decided after a certain date NO gas or diesel cars will be sold. When do you think this will apply to motorcycles as well? Will the rest of the world do the same thing? Who knows when they will perhaps, they never will. The clear thing is low carbon producing vehicles are becoming the target for advanced countries, though perhaps not for India and China.
IF HD, shakes itself out of its present state and finds some way to embrace the new technologies, the new demands of new customers, and government regulations, it will survive. HD management should take a LONG hard look at the demise of Kodak and commit to doing something better suited than Kodak's management. How they will do this, I don't know, I only know what happened to a giant of a company with a well known name and large share of market.
Management is the key to any companies success. During my time at Kodak, I worked not only in film research and development I had several divergent jobs there over my 25 year span.
I started out in Kodak assembling cameras, that went away because cameras could be made cheaper and better by camera companies overseas. I went from assembling cameras to assembling mortar shell fuses, that went away because of problems with manufacturing and cost. After mortar shells, I got involved with office copiers, Kodak was trying to build another business beside film and chemicals, needless to say, that went bust, upper management couldn't get behind it as it was not film and paper related. From there I went to blood analyzers. Again an attempt to branch out into something beside the film business. Nope, blood analyzers, could not make a big enough profit so they were sold to Johnson and Johnson who went on to make entire company out of them hence lots of money. I finally ended up in fine art black and white photography research and development. While there, I was involved in bringing many fine black and white products to market. Then, the digital age hit hard. Research into new film was cut, and the products I had worked so hard to bring to market were ignored. I was laid off as my career had ended and the company was dying. Dying companies don't keep people on or hire.
A long sob story the point being, HD, BMW can both end up in the same boat as Kodak if their upper management has their heads up their asses.
The attack on motorcycling is going on now, be it changing tastes, environmental, any one or a hundreds of things. Smart management will make the difference. Oh yes, there are still buggy whip makers out there. Perhaps one day HD and BMW will be in the same boat as they are.
Futurists can say a lot of things, only one thing for certain will happen, we will all be dead in the future, our likes, dislikes, habits, customs, works, everything will be gone in the future. I will continue to ride my 84 R80RT and my 78 RS for as long as I can because, as far as I am concerned, BMW dropped the boat years ago first with the boutique dealer experience and second because I have never needed the high tech go fast, bigger better bikes with yards of plastic, stylish but useless side cases and a host of other things.
My final word is this, nothing in a digital image will ever replace a properly made silver halide film and paper black and white picture. The quality is non existent in digital compared to silver. Yet, silver is gone to almost nothing but a handful of people now. Baggers, and R18, and Wide Glides might just be in the silver league. Time will tell. St.
I silently forgave him. He thinks Harley is the best bike in the world, even though his motorcycle experience is fairly limited. I like my Harley, but easily admit it's limitations.
He and another friend were standing around talking bikes, I mentioned something about the performance of my RT. He said his new Milwaukee 8 would roll right on by my RT. My other friend just about spit out his beer laughing. (He has a 2016 Limited same as mine, hopped up the same too. Also rides a K1600GTLE) Harley buddy looked at my K1600 buddy and says whats so funny? Buddy with the K1600 went on to tell him his Milwaukee 8 wouldn't touch a stock RT. Harley buddy wasn't sure what to think about that! I told him he might beat me on the launch as he can just drop the clutch and go, the RT takes a bit more finesse to launch, but by the time he shifts into 2nd gear I would be rolling right on by. I also think he forgot about the 300 pound weight advantage for the RT.
stevenrankin
Active member
New Bikes
I am afraid I have not followed the roll out of the two new bikes in BMW's line up. One is the K1600 bagger, the other some kind of R1800?
From my limited knowledge of the market, I am stumped as to why BMW would bring out two big ass bikes with piss poor luggage capacity styled after Harley Davidson? I mean, this thread started out with is Harley dying? So why in the heck would BMW say "Hey lets invest in two big assed bikes that sort of look like Harley Davidsons, which is dying".
Sorry, I have said it before, I have never had an interest in HD. As for BMW, they lost me as a customer years ago with the advent of the K bikes then the bigger more technical infused R bikes, and so on.
With my R80RT, I can carry as much or more luggage than a $32K R1250RT, and run along fairly quickly enough to get speeding tickets in any state. I am talking about an RT versus an RT, not an RT versus bagger or R1800.
HD has always said bigger is better, fine for them. If you want to ride a ton of noisy steel, fine go right ahead. I myself would rather ride a good handling, luggage hauling, smooth bike with reasonable fuel economy and power. I have never needed nor wanted even a radio on my bikes.
So to get back on track, HD is having a problem selling its road hogs and BMW has decided to jump into the game with its version of road hogs. Yup, makes perfect marketing sense to me. Just like Kodak jumping into copiers. I sure hope for BMW the strategy works not that I care, I am not going to be buying an new BMW in my remaining years of riding. Oh yes, if some one gives me one, fine. I will take it. St.
I am afraid I have not followed the roll out of the two new bikes in BMW's line up. One is the K1600 bagger, the other some kind of R1800?
From my limited knowledge of the market, I am stumped as to why BMW would bring out two big ass bikes with piss poor luggage capacity styled after Harley Davidson? I mean, this thread started out with is Harley dying? So why in the heck would BMW say "Hey lets invest in two big assed bikes that sort of look like Harley Davidsons, which is dying".
Sorry, I have said it before, I have never had an interest in HD. As for BMW, they lost me as a customer years ago with the advent of the K bikes then the bigger more technical infused R bikes, and so on.
With my R80RT, I can carry as much or more luggage than a $32K R1250RT, and run along fairly quickly enough to get speeding tickets in any state. I am talking about an RT versus an RT, not an RT versus bagger or R1800.
HD has always said bigger is better, fine for them. If you want to ride a ton of noisy steel, fine go right ahead. I myself would rather ride a good handling, luggage hauling, smooth bike with reasonable fuel economy and power. I have never needed nor wanted even a radio on my bikes.
So to get back on track, HD is having a problem selling its road hogs and BMW has decided to jump into the game with its version of road hogs. Yup, makes perfect marketing sense to me. Just like Kodak jumping into copiers. I sure hope for BMW the strategy works not that I care, I am not going to be buying an new BMW in my remaining years of riding. Oh yes, if some one gives me one, fine. I will take it. St.
bigjohnsd
'21 R1250 GS Adv
Why? What better to do during Corona Craze?
